14. Garret
GARRET
I caught the pack a mile south of town and fell into formation at the rear.
Butch glanced back and gave me a nod, and I returned it and matched the pace of the bikes ahead of me, but my mind was still on Sara.
I couldn't believe how foolish I was losing control like that.
I knew what Fox would say dragging another woman into the club right now with things how they were.
The Locusts had set up shop in our territory selling their drugs, which was probably what we were out on the hunt for again tonight, and if any one of them found out she was my weak point, I’d end up having to explain to Anne why she was losing another family member.
It was just the way things went. They'd threaten or harm Sara, and I'd never forgive myself.
I knew better, and I caved because I wanted her.
The wind whipped across my skin, making my cut flap hard on my back, and I focused on the taillights ahead of me.
Peter was lying in a hospital bed dying, and while that wasn’t my fault, I felt the pull of guilt for cozying up to his little girl again.
I was way too old for her and I knew it, and the fact that she was really hurting over this made her that much more susceptible to being influenced.
Folks might look at us like I was a predator, which would draw a lot of unwanted attention which Fox would hate.
I felt the urge to pull back from her and revved my engine, antsy to get this over with so I could go have a drink.
We rode the rest of the way in formation down a county road that every club in the state knew belonged to us.
When the grain elevators rose up against the dusky sky ahead, the pack slowed and fanned out.
Our engines dropped to a low growl as we rolled off the pavement and onto the gravel lot behind the far building.
The Locust boys were exactly where Butch said they'd be and heard us coming.
By the time we rolled into the gravel lot behind the elevator, they were already on their feet with their product stashed and their hands at their sides.
Three of them were spread out in a loose triangle between their bikes and the elevator wall.
They'd been expecting trouble eventually.
You didn't set up shop on another club's road without knowing the bill would come due.
We fanned out and circled them, cutting off the exit to the road. Our engines died one at a time until the lot went quiet.
Butch was off his bike first. He walked straight at the one in the middle, a stocky guy with a braided beard and a Locust patch so new the stitching still looked clean.
"You know whose road this is?" he asked, puffing out his chest. I'd seen him do similar about a hundred times just this year.
He liked confrontation, and he liked being the one to pick a fight, which was exactly where this was headed.
"I know whose road it used to be." The guy was green, and way too young to be out here flapping his jaws like that.
"Used to be?" Butch stopped about three feet from him and cocked his head. "That's cute. You rehearse that?"
"We ain't looking for trouble," the one on the left said. He was older than the other two and his eyes kept darting between our bikes, counting heads. "We're just doing business."
"Your business is on your road," Rusty called from behind me.
"Not on ours… You ain't got no business here.
" I heard him spit as I swung my leg over my bike and forced myself not to wince at the pain.
Anymore, I let the brothers deal with most of the fighting, but lately, it'd gotten worse, like someone purposefully lit these guys' pants on fire or something.
"Roads don't have names on them, brother."
"Don't call me brother." Rusty swung off his bike and walked up beside Butch. "You got about ten seconds to get on your bikes and ride east before we decide to stop being nice."
The stocky one in the middle looked past Butch and Rusty at the rest of us. He wasn't stupid. He could count just fine, and the numbers weren't in his favor. But pride was a hell of a drug, and these boys had been selling enough of the real thing to think they were untouchable.
"We paid our dues to be here," he said. "Talk to your president if you've got a problem with it."
"Our president sent us," Butch said. "This is him talking."
The stocky one's jaw worked for a second, clenching and loosening up like he was chewing snuff.
Then he looked at his boys and gave a small nod, and for a moment I thought they were going to mount up and leave without a fight.
Instead, the young one on the left threw a sucker punch at Rusty that caught him on the cheekbone and snapped his head sideways.
That was all it took.
Butch drove his fist into the stocky one's gut and doubled him over, then brought a knee up into his face that stood him back up and sent him stumbling into his own bike.
The third one, who'd been quiet the whole time, pulled a chain from his saddlebag and swung it at Hank, who ducked under it and tackled him into the gravel.
I was moving before the chain hit the ground, running straight at the chaos.
The young one who'd started it was trading blows with Rusty, and he was quicker than he looked.
He caught Rusty with a left hook that split his eyebrow open and followed it with a right that Rusty slipped just barely.
I came in from the side and grabbed the kid by his cut and yanked him off balance.
He swung wildly at me and I stepped inside it and hit him with a straight right to the jaw that dropped him to one knee.
"Stay down," I told him, but the idiot didn't listen.
He came back up swinging and caught me on the side of the head, which rang through my skull and pissed me off more than it hurt.
I grabbed him by the throat and walked him backward until his shoulders hit the elevator wall, then pinned him there with my forearm across his chest.
"You assholes never learn, do you?" I hit him hard in the gut, doubling him over, and he dropped to his knees in front of me.
The fight was winding down around us. Butch had the stocky one on the ground with his boot on his back, and Hank and two other brothers had the quiet one pinned against his bike with the chain wrapped around his neck.
Rusty was bleeding from the eyebrow but grinning about it, and my body felt like I had enough adrenaline for five elephants.
"We done here?" Butch asked the stocky one under his boot.
"Get off me."
"Are we done?" he snarled, pressing his foot down harder. It was easy to know who the leader of this invasion was.
"Yeah. Yeah, we're done."
Butch stepped off and the man got to his feet, spitting blood into the gravel. I let the young one off the ground and he stumbled toward his bike, holding his gut with one hand.
"You come back to this road," Butch said, "and it won't be fists next time. Pass that along to whoever sent you."
They mounted up and pulled out of the lot single file, heading east with bruised faces and a message they wouldn't forget anytime soon.
We stood there and watched their taillights shrink until they disappeared around a curve, and then Rusty touched his eyebrow and looked at the blood on his fingers.
"That little bastard could hit." He chuckled.
"Maybe you're just getting slow, old man," Butch told him.
"Maybe you shoulda warned me he was a southpaw."
"Where's the fun in that?"
The brothers shook hands and knocked fists and started mounting up to ride home. Butch clapped me on the shoulder as he passed. "Good work tonight, Crank."
"Yeah," I grumbled, though after getting myself all keyed up, I couldn't come down. A lot had transpired in the past ninety minutes that would take me days to process.
I turned toward my bike and forced my body to cooperate with me. I was straddling my bike getting ready to roll out with the rest when Lightning pulled up beside me and killed his engine.
"Hang back a minute, Crank."
The others rode off one by one until it was just the two of us.
Lightning sat on his bike with his arms crossed glowering off into the distance like he had something super important and somewhat confidential to say.
But I wasn't in the inner circle, so to speak, and if there was something that important, I was sure Fox would be the one telling me, not Lightning
"What is it?" I asked.
"I'm gonna say this once, and I'm gonna say it real nice. Stay away from the Ducette family."
I must've looked stupid gawking at him. "Come again?"
"You heard me. Sara Ducette's back in town and I don't want you anywhere near her.
Not at the diner, not at the shop, not around back where you think nobody's watching.
" Lightning narrowed his eyes on me, and I knew someone had seen me back there with her, which meant someone probably knew I screwed her on those steps.
That would be a hard one to explain to Anne.
"Somebody's watching, apparently." It was anger I felt over our privacy being invaded, but not even a hint of shame.
"Damn right, somebody's watching. I've got eyes everywhere and I hear things, Crank. You were around back of Ma's Griddle tonight, and you weren't there for the coffee."
"What I do on my own time isn't club business." I reached for my key, ready to fire up my steel and ride off, but he shifted and hardened his gaze on me. I knew he wasn't messing around.
"Everything you do is club business when I say it is. I'm second in command and I'm telling you to steer clear. You got it?" This couldn't be about Peter. Lightning couldn't care less about him other than his small engine shop sometimes got work we could handle.
"Since when do you care about the Ducette family?"
"Since right now. That's all you need to know." He uncrossed his arms and gripped his handlebars. "If I hear you've been around Sara again, you'll answer for it at church. And I promise you won't enjoy how that conversation goes."
He kicked his bike to life and pulled out of the lot without giving me a chance to respond, and I sat there with my engine cold and my fists tight on the grips.
Lightning had never mentioned Sara's name once in four years. Not once. And now she was back in town and suddenly, he was pulling rank to keep me away from her. That wasn't club business. If it was, it'd come from Fox, not him. So what was going on and why did he want me away from her?
I started my bike and pulled onto the road toward town, and somewhere around the halfway mark, it clicked. Lightning didn't give a damn about protecting the Ducettes. He wanted Sara for himself, and he was using his rank to clear the field. It was the only logical reason that made sense.
I twisted the throttle and the bike surged under me.
If anyone was going to have Sara Ducette, it was me. And if Lightning wanted to make that a problem, then we'd have a problem.